Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Well it seems like just yesterday that I was starting blogs in Mrs. Hayes English 3 class. Now this is my last post. Where has the time gone? Junior year went by pretty fast, and I actually enjoyed English this year. Blogging made it so much easier to keep up with unlike the traditional five paragraph essays which everyone hates. We had more freedom with everything that we wrote about, which I liked. I could actually use humor on here which I couldn't do in an essay or research paper. They also weren't strict, we could just make stuff up connect it to our book and we had a post.

Fremdenging was also a new experience. It was cool how we got to interact with other students in a different school. We got their input on our blogs and we got to see and comment on their blogs as well. I think blogging and fremdenging also helped our technology skills. I learned how to make animotos and word mosaics and all sorts of other things so I could add them to my blog. Overall, I liked the new experience of blogging and getting away from the boring old english papers. It was fun and creative. I only hope that next year in my English 4 class we will do something fun instead of papers... haha. For now, I'm done with blogging and I have SUMMER 2012 to look forward to! (:

Thanks for reading my blogs this year!
So tell me... How did I do my first year of blogging?

In my book What Happened to Goodbye By Sarah Dessen, the main character, Mclean's parents are divorced. They went through a bad split where her mom left her dad for the coach of the Defriese basketball team, which happened to be their favorite team. Mclean resents her mom after leaving her dad, so she chooses to stay with her him after the split. When her mom remarries and has two more kids, Mclean pretty much wants nothing to do with her. Her mom always tries to get her to come spend time with her, but she always refuses. At one point in the book her mom is trying so hard to get her to see her that she wants to take her father to court. Mclean doesn't want to deal with court cases so she agrees to certain times she'll go visit her mom.

In my opinion, it's Mclean's choice whether she wants to see her mom or not. I know it's just a book but her mom can't force her to come see her. If she doesn't want to she shouldn't have to. In most cases, divorced parents sometimes take each other to court and fight for custody of their children. But why don't the kids ever get any say on who they want to live with? Thats why in the book Mclean's mom bothers me, she doesn't realize that Mclean just doesn't want to live with her and she wants to live with her dad. My parents got divorced when I was little, no custody battles happened, my sister and I just chose to live with my mom and went to visit my dad whenever we wanted to.

What do you think? Do you think kids should have the right to choose which parent they want to live with without any of the court drama?

Sunday, May 6, 2012

This is the cover of my book, looking at it for the first time I wasn't quite sure what the book was about. It didn't quite go along with the title. Soon into the book though you realize what the cover means.

Mclean's mom and dad are divorced.

Her mom then marries the coach of their favorite basketball team.

Then her mom had twins.

After the divorce, Mclean stayed with her dad because she was angry with her mother for what she did to him. Her mother tries reaching out to her throughout the entire book but Mclean tries her hardest to push her away. She didn't really want anything to do with her.

Moving around so much, Mclean never got to really get to know people. Each place she moved she made a new name for herself and had a totally new personality from the last place. The place shes in in the book, Lakeview is the only place she's used her real name.

When Mclean first gets to their new house there was a boy in their backyard, and when he saw her he smiled at her and ran across the street. She later went to a party next door and when the cops came, she ran and got pulled down under a house by someone to avoid getting caught drinking. It was the same guy who turned out to be her neighbor, Dave. They become really close in the book, and you can see that they have feelings for each other.

Her father is the head of a restaurant called Luna Blu. He comes in and makes a lot of changes to the restaurant that upset a lot of the workers. The biggest change is taking away their famous rolls and replacing them with fried pickles. They turn out to be a big hit with all the customers, and after the big ordeal Mclean reveals to one of the workers that her dad doesn't even like pickles.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

This link is to Sarah Dessen's page. She is the author of my book, and also one of my favorite authors. This page shows all of her books and her bio. By knowing the author, this link could help the reader better understand the book.

http://sarahdessen.com/book/what-happened-to-goodbye/

This is another link to Sarah Dessen's page. This one is her words about What Happened to Goodbye. This link could help the reader get to know the book more before they actually read it.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8492856-what-happened-to-goodbye

This is a link to a page that has book reviews. This book review is on my book What Happened to Goodbye. Reading other readers reviews on the book could help you understand the book. It could also help you decide if you want to read the book or not.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/fried-dill-pickles/

I know what it looks like.. a random link to a recipe to fried pickles. Well it is. In my book, the main character's dad owns a restaurant and when he gets there he changes the main appetizer to fried pickles. When I read about the friend pickles it made me want some, so if it's the same way for you, you can go to this page and learn how to make them!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basketball

This is a link to a page that explains the game of basketball. In the book, Mclean and her dad used to love the Defriese basketball team. That is until her mom left her dad for the coach of the team. This link could help the reader just get a better understanding of the game so they can understand some of the things that Mclean and her dad talk about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_service

This link is to a page that explains community service. It lists the different reasons for people to do community service as well.In the book, Mclean's neighbor, Dave, got caught underage drinking so he had to take part in a community service project. Understanding what community service is could help the reader understand why Dave is participating in it.

Have you ever read this book?
Are there any other things I should have linked about?